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  The markers generated a cascade of links and then popped up a personnel file of a marine, and Melody felt a violent rise of bile in her throat.

  “The prints belong to First Expeditionary Marine Sergeant Waren Dillon of Sota,” Captain Percival said with the sad finality of someone who’s given up on a childhood dream. “Age twenty-six, two meters tall. Parents both deceased from hypothermia eighteen months ago during the energy crisis in White Bay. We believe he became disillusioned by their deaths, and shortly after became radicalized. We are working on whom he might’ve come into contact with on his leaves. We hope we will be able to unearth anti-expansionists here in the colonies as a result.”

  “That motherfucker,” Melody’s father exclaimed over the din of the shocked attendees.

  Melody’s stomach churned and her heart pounded. Her face felt flush and her hands cold. Seeing Waren’s face hit her hard. She leaned over and put her head between her legs and tried to breathe deeply. She felt Dan’s hand come to a rest on one shoulder, then Leah’s on the other. The firmness and warmth of their touch helped.

  “Indeed, sir,” Percival said. “We searched the other return vessels and were able to locate, remove and disarm two more explosive charges beyond Rhapsody. One was on Kenya’s docking airlock, the other on Beagle’s. Both bombs were covered in Sergeant Dillon’s fingerprints and were made using the same design as the charge that destroyed Rhapsody.”

  Melody’s stomach pain worsened. It felt like she’d eaten a handful of jagged rocks. The memory of Waren dancing and laughing at her wedding, eating her food and drinking her drink, made her guts roil and her heart ache.

  Daron stood and walked around the table to Melody. She looked up at her father, confused and angry. She couldn’t believe Waren’s betrayal and her dad knew what was happening inside her. He bent over and hugged his daughter tight.

  Percival continued. “As we know, Waren Dillon remained behind with the mission on Selva. As we also should know, the magnetosphere of Selva prevents communication in almost every way.”

  “What about burst laser transmissions?” Leah asked. “Magnets don’t affect those.”

  Doctor Herbert Maine–the architect of the mission’s launch science–replied. “True, Capt. Kingsman. But the aurora borealis effect on Selva caused by the magnetic activity can interfere with the transmissions. The technology was never designed for such distances. There is a tiny window of opportunity as our moons orbit Ghara and as Selva orbits the sun, but that window is closing. Soon there will be no chance of any kind of communication for a prolonged period.”

  “So he’s back on Selva, a snake in the grass and there’s no way we can tell anyone there?” Sarah Adams said.

  “Oh, like you fucking care, Sarah.” Daron snapped, standing from the embrace with his daughter. “You wanted this mission grounded from day one. Don’t even act like you’re one bit perturbed by this turn of events.”

  Sarah stood slowly, with a set jaw and flushed cheeks.

  “Senator Courser, though I did not support the mission or the further expansion of the colony, or the dissolution of its colonial assets, I did not want harm to befall anyone. I believe expansion like this mission spreads our resources too thin and costs us human lives at home. Develop home fully, then explore new worlds. To allow for anyone to kill expedition members flies in the face of my belief that we need to save lives. I will kindly ask that in the future you speak in a tone that befits your honor, and my position, sir. We are not enemies at this table, or in this matter.”

  Melody took her father’s hand.

  “Stop. What’s done is done. We need to focus on how we can get back to Selva as fast as possible to arrest him, or how to get them a message to achieve the same. Arguing over politics doesn’t save lives. It never has, and never will.”

  Sarah’s stern face softened. “True words, my dear. I am so sorry about this. I know your husband is back on Selva with this maniac. I can’t imagine what’s going through your mind.”

  “It’s better you don’t imagine what I’m thinking. It’s a bit of a circus in my head right now.”

  Sarah nodded at Melody, and took her seat.

  “What now?” Daron posed as he tried to refocus his anger. Melody noted that he didn’t apologize to Sarah.

  “I will coordinate with Pioneer 3’s assets to see if we can fire burst laser transmissions to Selva to warn them about the good sergeant,” Doctor Maine said. “I suspect we will struggle with that solution. My team was able to run numerous new calculations with the most recent trough opening and closing. I am of the mind that we can trim several days off a return trip to Selva. Perhaps as much as a week.”

  “I’ll start planning what that fleet looks like, and get it ready to go,” Leah said, getting to her feet.

  “Good, thank you Captain. Doctor Maine tell me; optimistically what are we looking like for a return date to Selva?” Daron asked the physicist.

  “The next trough opening is on January thirty-first at approximately zero two hundred hours Ghara time,” he answered from memory.

  The room’s collective shock vibrated.

  “Wait,” Melody said. She did the math in her head. “Today is October fourth. That’s a hundred and nine days away. Three months before we can even attempt a rescue?”

  Doctor Maine nodded. “Give or take a day, yes. I believe I can trim that down a bit using the data the fleet gathered during the expedition. Optimistically, communication with Selva via burst laser should be more feasible within eighty days, plus or minus.”

  “Not much of a consolation prize, Doctor,” Daron said, looking down at his daughter. “Start running your math and work on the communication issues. Leah, you plan the return fleet. Fastest vessels you have, only the most trusted crew. No mistakes, ladies and gentlemen. We can’t afford any and the men and women back on Selva certainly can’t.”

  He had no idea how right he was.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Atop a mushroom tower, Dampier Peninsula forest, planet of Selva

  5 October 163 GA

  The First Expeditionary Marines who sought refuge at the very top of the jungle’s tallest of plants dealt with an embarrassment of riches. Some of which they had the foresight to bring during their exodus, and some provided by the weather of the world that a few days prior had done all it could to kill them.

  The daytime sky above their platform had become devoid of clouds. No shade existed other than the darkness that enclosed their flesh when they wore their armor, and that solution couldn’t work for long; the armor wouldn’t cool without running down batteries, and the men needed all the power they had for combat if it came.

  Any skin that saw more than two hours of midday sun scorched. Dustin and Waren suffered the worst with their lighter complexions. By the end of their second day atop the alien fungus they both were sun-blasted to a russet red with dry, chapped lips and were dangerously close to developing painful blisters. Ping-Pong’s Asian genetics somehow spared him from an equal fate. He had taken on redness, but he suffered no pain from it. To find some cover the men spread out and propped up a lightweight silver thermal sheet using meter long shards of mushroom they carved off with an entrenching tool. The improvised tent bought them relief, but did little to stop the evaporation of their water, or the competition they had for it.

  Steve drew back a slingshot made out of a piece of bent steel and elastic strapping. He fired off a piece of hard mushroom he had carved into a spherical bullet and smashed apart a beetle the size and color of a mango. Its insides spattered across the sunbaked top of the mushroom, leaving a streak of sticky goo.

  “Nice shot,” Dustin said from his back beneath the silver roof. A hot breeze rattled the film of the blanket and made a crinkling noise. At his side, Waren confirmed the success of the shot by snoring a bit louder.

  “Thank you,” Ping-Pong said. “Do you think we can eat these things?”

  Dustin shrugged. His thoughts were sluggish. More sluggish as
each hour passed with rationed food and water.

  “They look like they’re filled with snot. That’s like water, right?”

  “Yeah, I guess. I’m not an expert on it, man. Take a bite of one and let me know how they taste.”

  “I’ll pass for now. I still have three MRBs.”

  “How’s your leg doing? Still sore?” Dustin asked. He’d seen Steve rubbing where the bones had been cracked by the very first rock bug they’d faced. He worried.

  “It’s great. Nothing to report,” Ping-Pong lied.

  “You have how many, three meal bars left?”

  “Yeah, if we keep at a half bar a day, we have what, two days of food left?”

  “Something like that,” Dustin sighed. “Then we get to eat the locals whether they taste good or not.”

  “I am so excited for snot soup,” Ping-Pong replied before picking up the binoculars and returning to his watch of the conquered settlement of Stahl far below. “Nothing still. I keep watching the people they’ve coated in that blue shit to see if they’re gonna change back but it ain’t happening. I think it’s permanent. And I think it’s getting worse.”

  “Of course it is,” Dustin said. “We need to give it another day or two and let more of them leave. Wander back into the jungle or into the plains looking for food. Once the place is cleared out some we’ll head back in and check for survivors. Until then we keep watch and maintain this place. We’re safe here. Hungry and thirsty, but safer than anywhere else.”

  “Roger that, Vindicator One,” Steve replied and put the binoculars to his eyes.

  Two hours after Ping-Pong’s slingshot blew the mango-bug apart (and ten insects more after that) thick clouds came in from the west. A dark wall of upper atmospheric moisture came, kilometers high and as wide as the eye could see. Below the front edge of the dirty gray clouds, the marines could see a haze of rain.

  “Quick, everything that can hold water, get it the fuck out,” Dustin ordered, and his marines followed suit.

  Every bit of absorbent fabric was laid out flat, every canteen left opened, and each plastic or metal container that could be emptied was put out. They covered nearly the whole roof of the tower within minutes, and they were just in time.

  The raindrops fell from the sky, fattened and heavy at first. They splashed on the men’s skin. The drops hurt when they hit, but the delicious water tasted so good the men didn’t care about the pain. Scant minutes later, the storm folded over again and ate up more of Selva’s sky. The dark ripples and new layers changed the rain, too, tightening drops until they were little pinpricks of moisture. Much less painful on the skin, no less delicious in the mouth.

  The storm gave them far more water than they could hope to store.

  Ping-Pong put his slingshot away when the other denizens of Selva’s peninsula jungle scampered fearfully up and over the edge of the mushroom and made their way toward the flood of water at its center. More of the oddly colored mango insects came, as well as ants and bugs that looked as if they were made of broken twigs. Nothing threatened them or anything else at the watering hole, and the marines let the creatures sate their thirst in peace. As each drank their fill they shuffled away, heavier than when they came and ready to last out the next dry spell.

  A voluminous crash shook the men’s joy. They spun with weapons raised and pointed them at the area of the tree’s top, ready to kill.

  The silver tent they had erected to survive the sun had collected its own fill of water, and the weight proved too much for it to sustain. It collapsed, dumping its water into the center depression and falling atop their gear.

  “Well fuck that tent,” Dustin said.

  “Yeah,” Waren said, laughing.

  Dustin looked at his men and they shared a moment of bliss. They had survived. They would survive.

  He looked over the edge of the tree’s top and watched as the army of insects inside Stahl danced their own celebration under the rain. They, too, had survived, and could survive.

  Not if I have anything to say about it.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Medical habitat, town of Stahl, planet of Selva

  6 October 163 GA

  Captain Anna Castellano ruled the medical habitat with a pleasantly wielded iron fist. Specifically, she wore nitrile gloves but she brandished her authority with unquestionable certainty. During the battle of Stahl she had her small team of nurses working on three distinct tasks. First, outside the facility to serve as transporters of the wounded; second, as triage experts; and, third, inside the habitat as direct-care medical professionals.

  Transporting the wounded was quickly abandoned when casualties didn’t come in. The opening minutes of the battle were lopsided dramatically in favor of the marine defense force. They didn’t see so much as a splinter until the catapulter insects began throwing boulders and trees at them, and when that happened, triage went out the window as well. It didn’t take an expert to realize a man or woman half destroyed by a thousand kilo stone wouldn’t make it. Triage was unnecessary, and the balance of the battle had skewed out of control. They were no longer fighting off a slow encroachment. The men and women of Stahl were fighting for their lives against a landslide of horror.

  “The best medical assistance we can give our people right now is more guns in the battle. Arm up, hold this ground,” she said to them, and they did. Marine riflemen first, nurses second, they grabbed carbines from the bodies of dead and critically wounded marines and fired them at the leaping and slashing beetles until their magazines ran dry or they were taken down by a thousand tiny cuts and stabs. When the outer line of defense failed catastrophically and the much larger rock bugs came close, Anna knew the situation had stormed right past bad and straight into apocalyptic.

  When she watched one of the odd mantis-like bugs prowl through the battle like an alien god seeking sacrifices, her stomach turned. She watched as one of the giant insects spit in the face of a wounded corporal she’d treated for a rash several days prior. When she saw his skin crack and peel and his face split apart into mandibles filled with budding teeth and his eyes turn into soulless pools of obsidian, she knew they were in no way prepared to deal with an enemy like that.

  She ordered her staff into the hab, and they grabbed a half dozen wounded marines on the way, running and stumbling, shooting over their shoulders at reaching claws and stomping feet as best they could. They slammed the airlock doors closed on the outstretched pincer of a slaver insect, and they collapsed breathless and bloody.

  She considered her order to retreat into the locked medical suite to have been cowardly, but she had saved the lives of fifteen people, counting herself. Saved them long enough to starve or die of dehydration while the creatures crawled about meters away, still hungry for the flesh of the invading humans.

  Now, Anna checked the IV line for the marine who had suffered the worst injury and survived. He winced in pain.

  “Calm down Corporal. Gotta cope best you can,” Anna said to the sweating man in the fading light.

  They had killed the internal overhead lights to conserve power and draw less attention to their situation. The decision made the space feel cramped and dead, like a mausoleum.

  “I know, Captain. It just hurts getting your pelvis fractured by one of those shelled behemoths,” he said. “It’s like getting punched by a starship.”

  “Yeah. Good news is your x-ray this morning showed the bone growth stims have done wonders. You’re experiencing the pain of the bone knitting back together just as much as the surgical scars. It’s a good thing we could do it endoscopically, otherwise you’d be a hurting puppy.”

  “Thanks, Doc.”

  The pained warrior laid his head back and turned his face away from her.

  “You bet,” Anna replied and adjusted his IV pain medication drip a little higher. She would do more on any different day, but today everything had to be rationed.

  She walked away and looked at the marines gathered in her space. She had broken th
em back up into their unit remnants and assigned the survivors individual rooms as barracks. Each squad and fire team banded as best they could to rebuild their brotherhood. One lone Marine from C-squad was drafted into B-squad to bolster its numbers and give him a home. They didn’t talk about what happened to the rest of A-squad.

  Anna walked down the long central hall of the rectangular medical facility, away from the intensive care and surgical suite. She had taken up residence in that room to be close to the wounded marine in the event of an emergency. Opposite that room was the waiting room and diagnostics area. The open space there had been claimed by her medical personnel as their quarters, and it also passed for their living room.

  Anna sat down on a stool beside a counter that normally served as a place to handle and test blood. The surface was covered in neat piles of empty military ration wrappers and plastic water bottles that had been drunk dry. She looked at the shrink-wrapped plastic cases in the corner of the room and did the math.

  There are forty-eight bottles of water. The middle case should have six boxes of eighty meal replacement bars, which is 480 meals. If we stay on half rations we can last for . . . about sixty days. Sixty hungry days. That’s the end of November. Early December. Fleet isn’t returning until end of January. Why bother. We’ll run out of water unless we figure out a way to open the top hatch and collect rainwater. God forbid one of the things out there that used to be one of us remembers how to open the damn airlock. We’re boned if that happens.

  “Doc?

  Anna came to. One of her female nurses had been trying to get her attention. “Sorry. Yeah?”

  “Planning the potluck dinner for tonight?” She joked.

  “Yes Jocelyn, in fact I am. I think we should have fried alien bug served over a bed of rice noodles. I will be looking for volunteers to catch the alien bug shortly.”